Taking care of kids is never easy. Taking care of someone else’s kids is even harder. Try taking care of your own kids on top of that, and you’re facing a task that’s near impossible. Yet hundreds of women struggle with this task every day. Nannies with children is almost an ironic statement. These women provide a service that they themselves often cannot get. Most of these women, while being married themselves, lack the appropriate income to be able to hire nannies or babysitters for their own children.  Oftentimes the children are too young to be left home alone so it is necessary for these women to bring them along. This is a very controversial topic among mothers; it raises many concerns about how their children are being cared for, amongst other things. Nannies with children don’t have much of a voice in the childcare industry.  So many factors go into the hiring process of a nanny, and sometimes some of these factors are beyond these women’s’ reach.
            Factors like the economy and what level of education you have affect almost everyone in today’s working world. However, it appears that these factors affect people in the childcare industry a lot more harshly than in other fields of work. And some of these factors these women can’t even control. The fact that we have a poor economy nowadays is something that no one can control. And often, if someone doesn’t have a means of paying for a university or a college they don’t try to pursue it.
            A standard low income for nannies is $9-12 an hour, but can range all the way up to $18-20 in a more successful metropolitan area. While this is more than California’s low wage of $8.50, it’s not enough to even be able to pay for a day care, which is about $679 a month on average. This makes it near impossible for the nanny to find a way to take care of her children. This income, while being above minimum wage certainly is not a livable wage, especially with a family of their own to take care of.
For nannies looking to be hired, the level of education completed can sometimes be a deciding factor. If a family is just looking for a once-in-a-while babysitter, they often look to the younger group—high school students and maybe even as young as some middle school students. But if one is looking to develop a career as a nanny or as someone trying to enter the child care industry, having a higher level of education would be beneficial. Websites like http://www.nanny-training.com/ can be a useful tool in searching for schools with good programs to help people obtain appropriate degrees to be able to enter the child care industry with a good start.
Everyone is aware that the economy today isn’t doing too well. Unfortunately for the childcare industry, now that lay-offs are becoming more common and more parents are losing their jobs, nannies are less likely to be hired. And even when they are hired, it’s less likely to be for long periods of time. Being a nanny is a hire paying low-wage job, and even if these women manage to find another job that can fit into her schedule, these two jobs together probably still won’t be able to fit comfortably into her finances where she and her family will be economically okay.
In every movie with new parents, the first time the parents ever leave their child with another person is always a stressful one. The mother always asks if they’re doing it too early, and expresses a variety of other concerns. However exaggerated these scenes may be, the underlying topic is one shared by many parents. When I conducted interviews, most parents said they would not hire a nanny with children solely because they did not want the care of their children to be lessened if the nanny was too busy taking care of her own children. Another concern many parents shared was that they did not want the potentially problematic home life of the nannies to be introduced into their own homes. They also said that they did not want to feel like they would be raising extra kids. They admittedly stated that this was somewhat of a selfish outlook, but that regardless of everything else their own kids were still first in their eyes.
When it comes to parents, there is nothing that a parent won’t do to ensure the safety of their child or to make sure that their child is being cared for properly. I interviewed some parents and asked them whether or not they would hire a nanny with children and the majority said that they would not hire a nanny with children. Relationships with nannies and other caregivers tend to be very personal, and having the nanny's own kids there could strain the bond between the children and the nanny if the nanny's own kids were there. Some parents took the middle route and said that they would prefer if the nanny didn’t bring her kids but if they brought them every once in a while it would be okay. Other parents said that they would just avoid the entire situation altogether and not hire a nanny at all; no one knows how to take care of their own children better than their own parents, after all.
The children of these nannies seem to be the biggest topic of controversy among the employers of the nannies. Some parents say that it would be too chaotic to have someone split the attention of one nanny among different groups of children and would never hire a nanny with children. Others say that while they understand where these women are coming from but that it’d just be easier to hire a nanny without children and to avoid the problem altogether. Many employers and potential employers say that it would just be easier and more convenient to hire a nanny without children altogether. However, some say that if they hired a nanny and as time went on she would have a kid that she would continue employment.
             A relationship between a nanny and a family can be a very close one, so close that children may consider the nanny to be almost like a second mother. Often this relationship can blossom, and both families can benefit from such a friendship. I know people who have had nannies their whole lives and they see these women as second mothers. The parents are okay with it, and the nanny loves the children as if they were her own. Granted this nanny does not have children, and I’m sure that the relationship would be different if she did have kids. If selected correctly, a nanny can be an excellent addition to a family, and could be very beneficial to the life of a family overall.
The future for these women and their children is still uncertain.  It’s a strange question to ask if you can bring your kids to work with you, so many women often find other ways to take care of their kids. Often these alternatives are costly and do not help the women’s current situations. Other solutions are needed so these women can have steady jobs as well as have adequate care for their children. Being a nanny is not a very demanding job, thus it has such a large appeal. Once better solutions can be made and put into place, these women will hopefully be able to receive a service that they themselves put so much time into offering.